Leo Tolstoy: A Confession - review

His midlife crisis, sort of. The questions Tolstoy raises are definitely worth exploring, but I feel that he only touches the surface. Whether you are religious or not doesn't really matter in this confession, it is first and foremost about the layers of someone's identity and how they are formed; your relationship with yourself, what self-respect entails and the challenges of developing it and keeping it, facing your own hipocrisy, questioning your fundamental beliefs and pondering on the meaning of life etc.

If you want a deeper religious self exploration, read "Fear and Trembling" by Kierkegaard, or just read Schopenhauer (whom Tolstoy quotes but also kind of dismisses in this book), particularly his essay "Religion: A Dialogue", you'll get a less satisfying (in a moral sense) but also a more honest view. This way you'll be able to compare and then form your own opinion, if you're into that stuff.

Rating: 3/5